Sunday, April 20, 2014

Wellington Defeated...

There is this story about the Duke of Wellington, commander of the Anglo-allied army, and Napoleon Bonaparte, the French Army General. Once they were both locked up in battle. Napoleon had vowed to take over Britain. The citizens of Great Britain did not know how the battle would go; but their leader, the Duke of Wellington, promised to send them a smoke signal right after the battle. They had no radio nor walkie-talkie in those days.

Right after the battle, the smoke signal went up. It read: “Wellington defeated ...” and suddenly a cloud covered the surface of the area and so the only message they could get that night was ambiguous.
That night the Church bells rang the sorrowful news that Wellington was defeated. Thousands of men and women of Britain went to bed sorrowful. But the next morning under a very clear weather another message started.

The message began in the same way: “Wellington defeated ...” but as they watched, another word began to appear and the full message read: “Wellington defeated Napoleon”. What a change that brought to the lives of men and women in Great Britain!

On Good Friday evening in the tomb, in the belly of the earth – the Messiah of Israel murdered, the Creator killed by His creatures – a message seemed to be coming through: “Christ defeated ...” This message remained until the thick dark cloud of three days in the tomb cleared. This clear Easter morning, the message is “Christ defeated Death and Satan”.